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"They have clearly bullied the
 wrong woman, and in so doing
 have awakened both a whistle-
 blower of historic proportions
 and a writer." 
 --- Patrick Lindsay Bowles
 London Times Literary Supplement

"Moving, eye-opening, shocking
 and even suspenseful...Christa
 Brown does not hold back in 
 this courageous account." 
 --- Luci Westphal, filmmaker,
 All God's Children

"Despite the extraordinary 
 recalcitrance of Baptist
 officials, Christa's story 
 is not one of fatalism and
 bitterness, but of courage
 and hope."
 --- David Clohessy, National 
 Director, Survivors' Network  
 of those Abused by Priests

"Christa Brown is a courageous,
 tenacious campaigner against
 sexual abuse..." 
 --- Mark I. Pinsky, author,
 A Jew Among the Evangelicals

"This book should rightly
 make any honest Christian 
 furious..." 
 --- Rev. Thomas Doyle, J.C.D.,
 co-author, Sex, Priests and
 Secret Codes

About this Book

What do Baptist leaders do about a minister reported to them for child molestation?

Nothing.

Nothing even when another minister knows about the abuse and says so. Nothing even when the largest statewide Baptist organization in the country concludes there is "substantial evidence" the abuse took place. Nothing even when the man is still working in children's ministry.

Do they warn people in the pews? No. Do they provide counseling for the victim? No. Do they remove the man from ministry? No.

This is the reality that Christa Brown encountered in Baptist-land when she tried to report the minister who molested her as a kid. It was a reality she couldn't accept.

This Little Light is the documented true story of her determination to assure that what was done to her would not be done to others.

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About the Author

Brown devotes much of her time to volunteer efforts to bring clergy accountability to Baptist-land and to support clergy abuse survivors.

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Feel free to use all or part of the following, and edit to suit. This content was prepared for your use. We ask no acknowledgement of any kind.

The call of "God's will" led the young, faith-filled Christa Brown straight to hell. In This Little Light, Brown retraces the terrain of that hell as she tells of being sexually abused in the name of God, by a man of God, and in the house of God. Then she tells what she did as an adult to try to assure that other kids might be safer in Baptist churches than she was.

Brown was one of the first to go public with substantiated molestation allegations against a Southern Baptist minister and documentation that others knew. She survived every attempt of the Baptist machine to shut her down and now uses her experience to shine a light into the darkness of Baptist clergy sex abuse and cover-ups.

Though church leaders knew about the minister's molestation, they kept quiet and allowed him to move on. Years later, when ugly memories began to ooze unbidden into her daily consciousness, Brown thought denominational leaders would surely take action. She was incapable of imagining otherwise.

Eighteen Baptist leaders later, Brown finally saw that the worst treachery rested not in the deeds of the predator, but in the damning complicity of so many others. Even while the predator's name sat in a file of "known offenders" at Baptist headquarters in Texas, he was able to continue working in children's ministry in Florida.

Brown does not hold back as she relates her own psychological unraveling. She grappled with both the dehumanizing horror of her past and the do-nothing response of Baptist leaders. Her story is riveting in what it reveals about the betrayal of children in the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Told from the perspective of the church girl, the wife, the mom, and the activist, This Little Light is a story that attempts to speak of the unspeakable and to sort out its impact on mind, body and spirit. It is also a story of institutionalized inertia that cloaks evil behind a veil of denial. And it is a story of survivor empowerment that brings with it the hope for change.

This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang was published by Foremost Press. It can be ordered through local bookstores and at ForemostPress.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.
ISBN-10: 0-9818418-3-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9818418-3-0
236 pp, $13.97

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